According to a report by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction at the end of 2025, the city was identified as 24 points at risk of traffic congestion, including 23 points in the central area of Ho Chi Minh City.
In the Cat Lai port area alone, thousands of container trucks enter and exit every day, tens of thousands of vehicles flock to the western industrial park, making the already overloaded infrastructure even more suffocating. In that context, the city's decision to invest in two key transport projects with a total capital of more than 15,600 billion VND is considered a strong step to remove the two biggest "bottlenecks" in the East and West areas.
In the East, Nguyen Thi Dinh street has long been considered a "hot spot" of congestion. This is the almost only entrance and exit of Cat Lai port. The dense volume of trucks and container trucks makes the road often fall into prolonged congestion, especially during peak hours.
To fundamentally solve the problem, Ho Chi Minh City will invest in a road connecting Cat Lai - Phu Huu port cluster to Ring Road 3 and the Ho Chi Minh City - Long Thanh - Dau Giay expressway. The road is nearly 6km long, 60m wide, with a total investment of 8.782 billion VND. When completed, this will be a strategic traffic axis, helping vehicles entering and leaving the port connect directly with the expressway and Ring Road 3, instead of putting pressure on Nguyen Thi Dinh as it is now.
Not only expanding the road surface, the project also invests in many large-scale items such as Ba Cua bridge with two units, each side with 5 lanes; the elevated road section with 4 lanes from Phu Huu port to the expressway intersection; adding connecting branches at Ring Road 3 to prioritize container trucks entering the expressway quickly. This new traffic organization method is expected to "liberate" pressure for the eastern gateway.
Meanwhile, the western area of Ho Chi Minh City is also facing no less overload. Vinh Loc road is currently only 7-8m wide, with two lanes but has to bear a large traffic volume from Binh Chanh, Binh Tan, Hoc Mon and neighboring industrial parks. Every time the shift ends, this road is often jammed, motorbikes jostling with trucks, posing a risk of accidents.
According to the project just approved, the Vinh Loc section from Tran Van Giau to road 2A (Vinh Loc Industrial Park) more than 7km long will be expanded to 30m, which is nearly four times the current situation. Total investment of about 6,870 billion VND from the city budget. The project also builds a new Ba Tri bridge, expands the Vinh Loc - Tran Van Giau intersection and completes the intersection of Vinh Loc - Quach Dieu - Vo Van Van - Nguyen Thi Tu intersection, gradually reorganizing the flow of vehicles in a more scientific direction.
Two projects with a total capital of more than 15,600 billion VND show that the city is shifting from handling situations to investing methodically and synchronously. However, to truly solve the "traffic jam problem", the decisive factor lies not only in the scale of capital but also in the progress of implementation, site clearance and synchronous connection with other projects such as Ring Road 3, expressway, and port system.
When these traffic axes are completed, the pressure accumulated for many years at the two largest gateways of Ho Chi Minh City can be significantly relieved. And more importantly, the city will have more room to develop logistics, industry and urban areas in a more sustainable direction, instead of continuing to "run after" traffic jams as before.
